Atmospheric blurring is a major limitation to forming images of high-altitude and space objects using ground-based telescopes. This limitation may be quantified by the seeing coherence length, also known as Fried's seeing parameter, ro, which provides a measure of the largest spatial frequency that is present in a long-exposure image formed by a telescope of interest. For many telescopes and atmospheric imaging systems, the seeing parameter ro typically has values under 10 cm.
Diffraction-limited telescopes may record spatial frequencies as the ratio of D/λdo, where D is the telescope diameter, λ is the nominal wavelength being sensed, and do is the distance from the telescope to the observed object. In many situations, however, long exposure imagery acquired through atmospheric turbulence may only contain frequencies up to the turbulence-limited cut-off frequency ro/λdo.
While exposure times on the order of a few milliseconds or less may provide images with spatial frequency information out to the diffraction limit, blur effects from atmospheric turbulence can degrade such images and diminish resolution capability.
What are needed therefore are systems and methods for three-dimensional imaging of objects through atmospheric turbulence with high resolution capability.